Jeff Monken the coach that would give the Huskers a true chance to “be back”

quote:

---

Like the Paul Johnson years at GT.

---

What Johnson ran at GT and what Nebraska ran in the Devaney-Osborne-Solich glory years were very different offenses.

Nebraska traditionally ran a power-based I formation offense with all the typical plays associated with it: sweep, counter, trap, iso, belly, etc. Their option game was mostly speed and belly option. If they ran any triple at all it was exceedingly rare.

Johnson ran the Flexbone with a lot of veer and midline. Although he ran the ball a lot, his scheme was more finesse. Smallish linemen with a lot more cutting and second level blocking and reading the All-American three technique instead of blocking him.

The Oklahoma wishbone teams under Fairbanks and Switzer generally had more in common with Johnson.

That said, I would love to see someone from that philosophy of offense at a major program again - although I don’t think it will happen. I enjoyed the Johnson years at GT. I went to one of his spring coaching clinics. My dad was a high school football coach and a split back veer disciple, so I grew up around similar offensive principles.

While both based on triple option principles, NU’s option was out of an I-formation, power running based approach vs. the traditional service academy style that was more based on deception/misdirection to help negate size disadvantages the service academy schools often encounter.

It’s interesting because in the 70’s, NU still employed power running and some option principles, but the option was relatively limited because the QB skillsets NU pursued were to find guys who were still pretty decent passers (Jerry Tagge, David Humm, Vince Ferragamo).

Osborne’s inability to get over the hurdle of Barry Switzer and OU’s lethal wishbone offense, compelled Osborne to implement more heavy option principles into his Power-I formation and start pursuing QBs with the skillset to run it beginning with Turner Gill around 1980.

It was a good move that served us well for many years to come.

We got away from Power running and option when Solich was unceremoniously canned and we’ve never really found our way back since.

We still get easily distracted by the bells and whistles of passing to move the ball and the results show for it.